


Trickster's Contract

by Asgardian_Centaur



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Deal with a Devil, F/M, Female Friendship, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Magical Contracts, Wanda and Sigyn could have been an interesting team, except Sigyn isn't really a devil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27426643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asgardian_Centaur/pseuds/Asgardian_Centaur
Summary: After Thanos' defeat, Wanda is offered a chance to fix reality and bring Vision back. The only problem? The person offering this solution is the trickster's widow, Sigyn, and in exchange she wants Loki brought back too.
Relationships: Loki/Sigyn (Marvel), Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	Trickster's Contract

**Trickster's Contract**

When Wanda came back to her apartment, a few bags of groceries slung over her forearms, she hadn’t expected to find someone in her living room.

A woman not much older than her, though certainly better dressed in a black suit and teal satin blouse, stood in the middle of her meager apartment. Her gaze seemed to be scanning every knick knack, every piece of furniture, analyzing every aspect of her life. The photo of herself and Vision that rested in a vintage frame of the end table seemed of particular interest.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, slowly lowering her bags to the ground.

The woman turned to her, and Wanda felt the hair on her arms stand up. Her power reactively swirled around her hands. 

“Peace, Wanda,” she said, smiling. “I’m a friend of Thor’s.”

“I won’t ask again.” This time, her hands balled into fists.

The woman sighed, and it reminded Wanda of whenever her mother would sigh at her and Pietro’s antics as children. “I’m just here to talk.” She glanced around the apartment. “How are you faring, Wanda? I can’t imagine it’s been easy with everything that’s happened.”

“Don’t act like we’re friends,” she snapped. “You think you can just show up at my apartment and act like you know what I’ve been through.”

“But I do know. Better than most.”

Thanos had said the same thing right before he reversed time and brought Vision back to life just to kill him in front of her. Her vision went red. With her power, she grabbed a knife and sent it flying at the woman’s face. It stopped millimeters from her forehead, right between her eyes. 

But the woman didn’t flinch. She didn’t even try to move the knife away from her. “I know _he_ killed your husband. He killed mine too.”

Wanda lowered the knife to the level of the woman’s throat. She had heard a little of what happened to Thor’s people. Thanos had attacked them, killed half of their population, and now they settled on Earth. “Your people are in Norway, right? Surely you can share your grief with them?”

“Unlikely. My people are more than content to move on with this...meager existence.”

“It’s not so bad. We all have to at some point.”

A shadow crossed the woman’s face, her eyes darkening. “Do we? We have lost homes, families, friends.” Her voice had taken on a sharpened edge. “Our husbands should have been brought back with the others, and yet they weren’t. This existence isn’t just unfair, it is cruelly imbalanced.”

In that moment, Wanda felt pity for her. But somewhere deep inside herself, a voice whispered _she’s right_. 

“Maybe it is. But there’s nothing we can do about that.”

“Yes, there is.” The woman seemed unconcerned about the knife at her throat. “You asked me why I was here. I’m offering you an opportunity to correct this imbalance. To tip the scales in our favor.”

“You’re mad.”

“Not the first time I’ve been called that. But think about it, Wanda. You could have your brother back. Natasha could still be alive…”

“Get out.”

“You could have a life with Vision. The life you two should have had.”

“I said get out!”

The woman put up her hands in defeat. “You don’t need to answer me right now. Think on it. And if in one week’s time you want to hear more about my offer, find me on the battlefield where it all ended.”

And like that, the woman was gone, leaving Wanda standing alone in the middle of her living room. The groceries were still by the kitchen, and if she didn’t get the milk in the fridge soon it would spoil. But she couldn’t move; the seed the woman had planted in her mind had taken root. All she could think of were the impossibilities, and she mistrusted the small seed of hope blooming in her chest.

* * *

One week later, Wanda sat in her car, parked as close to the site as she dared to get. She drummed her nails on the steering wheel. What was she doing here? Some strange Asgardian shows up at her apartment, talking nonsense, and Wanda decides to meet her on a deserted battleground? If Vision or Pietro were still alive, they would chastise her foolishness.

Vision. Pietro. They were the reason she had even bothered showing up. The temptation to have her family back was too strong, as this Asgardian must have known that. 

_Just hear what she has to say_ , she thought. _If you don’t like it, leave._

Wanda got out of her car and started walking towards the old Avengers headquarters. The construction crews had already gone home for the evening, but their equipment was still there. And there were still the remains of some of the alien ship Thanos had brought with him. It was as much a graveyard as a battlefield.

The powers that be had decided that this place was to be turned into a giant memorial. A historical site. One day children would be brought here to show them where the Avengers—where Tony Stark—had saved the universe.

Stark had saved the universe. Maybe that’s why it was unfair.

“I had a feeling you’d show up.”

The Asgardian woman was leaning against a nearby piece of equipment. Wanda hadn’t even noticed her, and wondered if she had shown up the same way she had at her apartment. She wasn’t looking at Wanda, but rather up at the stars. They were brighter here than they were in the city. Perhaps she was looking for Asgard.

“Looking for home?” She asked.

“Thanos killed the only home that mattered.” She pushed herself away from the machine in a fluid motion. “Here to take me up on my offer?”

This time, the woman was dressed closer to what she imagined other Asgardians wore. Her long sleeve black dress fell to her knees. Black leggings and black boots with delicate, swirling golden embroidery. A swath of fabric that shimmered between green and teal depending on the light crossed her chest and then cascaded down one shoulder, held in place by a golden chain that looked like a serpent. Her golden headpiece fanned out on either side of her head in delicate spokes.

“Not until you answer some questions.”

“Ask away,” she said, her arms out and her palms up. There was something uncomfortably beatific in her stance and in her crown that looked like a halo.

“Who are you?”

“I told you; I’m a friend of Thor’s.”

“Your name. Or I walk.”

She sighed. “Fine. My name is Sigyn.”

_Sigyn_ . Wanda tried to think back to some of the Norse mythology she’d read when she learned that Thor was well... _the_ Thor. This name didn’t stick out to her.

“You said we could tip the scales in our favor. What exactly are we talking about?”

Sigyn grinned. “A new reality. One where the world is exactly how it should be. Our husbands. Your brother. Your friends. Little Morgan could grow up knowing her father.”

“Leave her out of this.”

“The possibilities are endless, Wanda. That’s my point.”

Wanda leaned against the nearest piece of machinery. She was getting too comfortable, too willing to follow this train of thought. “What you’re talking about…” She said, shoving her hands in her jacket pocket. “It’s impossible. A new reality…”

“Realities.” She corrected and stepped forward. “And it only seems impossible because you’ve never considered it before. Were never allowed to consider it. The Avengers only had you moving things with your mind, but that is a fraction of your power. They kept you like a hawk, always tethered to a jess.” 

This close, Wanda could sense how unnatural Sigyn was. She had sensed it around Thor a few times, but only when he was using his power. Sigyn seemed to radiate energy. Her eyes were green, but glowed like a cat’s in the right light at the right angle.

“Getting into people’s minds isn’t something an Avenger does.”

“Are you still an Avenger? Do they even exist now?” That question had lingered in her mind since Stark’s funeral. It seemed like the idea of the Avengers died with Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. _If there are no Avengers, where does that leave me?_ Flawed as they were, the Avengers had become something like family to her. It was her place in the world. Now, she was a woman with strange powers and no place to use them.

Sigyn pressed on as though she had managed to read her mind. “If you’re not an Avenger, will the people accept you, or will they still fear you for what you can do?”

“Their fear isn’t my responsibility. You’re talking about playing god.”

She tilted her head, and her eyes took on that unnatural light again. “You forget who you’re talking to.”

Thor had said they weren’t gods, more like aliens. This Sigyn had to be mad to think herself one. Right? “Why should I trust you?”

“If we’re being honest, you shouldn’t. But I think you could trust him.”

Sigyn nodded at something just behind Wanda’s shoulder. She spun around, thinking to find Steve or Clint behind her. This woman must be desperate if she’s willing to bring them into this to convince her.

Her heart dropped when she saw who it really was.

“Vis?”

Vision stood amongst the rubble, looking much like he had the first time she saw him. No human glamour, not even the cape he wore. His smile was warm, like he was welcoming her home. She instinctively ran towards him, but her hands went right through him. An illusion, she realized, her heart cracking in her chest.

“You are cruel,” she hissed. Sigyn was toying with her, manipulating her. Wanda knew that the moment she made the offer, but using Visions likeness to do so was rubbing salt and vinegar into the wound. “A monster.”

Using her power, Wanda lifted a chunk of twisted metal off the ground and hurled it at her. But it stopped halfway between them. Sigyn’s arm was outstretched, holding it back.

“I’ve been called worse.”

Wanda tried to push the metal further, but Sigyn, though whatever strange magic she possessed, held firm. It didn’t so much as budge, no matter how hard she tried.

“Did you think some...magical hologram would change my mind?”

“If I thought that, I would have just done it at your apartment.” Sigyn closed her hand into a fist and ripped the metal from Wanda’s grasp and flung it aside. 

“Wanda.”

Vis’ voice snapped her out of the rage she felt, quieted the urge to keep fighting Sigyn that coursed through her blood. It was a sharp spike of ice to her heart and the most beautiful sound she’d heard. She wanted to run towards him, she wanted to run as far from the illusion as she could. 

Vision, or whatever this illusion was, was standing next to her, close enough that if he had been real, she could have rested her head on his shoulder. Tears welled in her eyes. She wanted so badly to reach out and touch him. She could practically feel his hand on the back of her neck.

“I miss you,” she whispered, closing her eyes as the tears slid down her cheek. _Please just be real. Even for a moment._

“And I you,” he said, softly, almost like he did when they were in Edinburgh. He gently wiped her tears away, his touch lingering on her cheek…

Wanda’s eyes snapped open. Vision was practically holding her, solid and real. Their surroundings flickered between the construction site and the hotel they shared in Edinburgh. One reality trying to slip into another.

“How?” Her voice was barely louder than the wind.

“You wanted it to be real.” Sigyn answered. She was directly behind her, and the hand that rested on the back of her neck, that she thought was Vision’s, was hers. “So it was. For a moment.”

Wanda cupped Vision’s cheek, and he rested his head against her forehead. The energy she felt humming through her was already fading as Sigyn pulled her hand back. Vision faded, as did the flickering surroundings, leaving her and Sigyn alone one the construction site.

It was like losing him all over again, but she was certain of one thing. _I need him back_.

“If we do this,” Wanda started, swallowing heavily, “What will happen, exactly?”

“I’ll unlock your power. All you have to do is imagine a new reality. However many you want. You can live a thousand different lifetimes with Vision.”

“You would make me a god.”

“There are so few of us left.”

Oh yes, she was definitely mad. But maybe they both were. “What’s your price?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t play coy. There’s always a price.” Wanda finally turned around. “What’s yours?”

Sigyn looked away, quickly wiping tears away. “You’d have your husband back. All I ask is the same.”

Wanda had figured as much, but she had also expected a steeper price. A first born child. Ten years of her life. A small country to rule--maybe even her homeland. But all she saw was a widow, not unlike herself. To an outsider looking in, they might have been sisters or friends, sharing in their grief. 

“That’s all?” Sigyn nodded. “Who was he?”

Sigyn still couldn’t look at her, and her body language shifted just so slightly. Wanda thought she might shrink back into the shadows and disappear. She closed in on herself and took a step back.

Then, a figure shimmered into existence next to her. He towered over her; she only came up to his shoulders. Dark hair, sharp eyes, and a grin that promised all kinds of mischief.

Wanda knew exactly who it was before Sigyn could say anything. She had seen his image plastered all over every news channel, from large corporate ones to the tiny little station in her hometown. The attack on New York had been a global event, and the man who led it was known on practically every corner of the globe.

“No.” Wanda knew this had to have been too good to be true. Sigyn offered so much for so little in return; this was the catch. 

“Wanda…”

“Do you know what he did to New York? Thousands of people were killed. He would have brought an army to enslave the world.”

Sigyn met her gaze, defiant, with that unnatural glow to her eyes. She knew. She knew, and she didn’t care.

“He brought that army on Thanos’ orders. The same Thanos who captured him, tortured him with the same Mind Stone that sat in your husband’s head, who for his failure snapped my husband’s neck. Loki was not innocent, but he was a pawn. Just as your Vision was.”

“Don’t compare them. Loki was a killer.”

“And you aren’t? Did you not blow up a lab in Lagos?”

“That was an accident!”

“Was seeking out Hydra in order to gain powers to destroy Tony Stark an accident? Was it an accident when you joined Ultron, or when you sent the Hulk into a rampage that destroyed a city in South Africa?” 

“Stop it…”

“Tell me, Wanda. When you had the chance to remake the world under Ultron, you backed down. Why was that?”

“He would have killed the entire human race.”

“No, because he would have remade the world as _he_ saw fit, not how you did. You wanted a world free of the Avengers. You can still have that. No Avengers, no fighting. Just you and your family. I know because I want the same thing.”

“We’re...we’re not the same.”

“We both knew something was wrong with our worlds and did what we had to do to change them. And what do we get? Our friends and family: dead. Our husbands: killed for their failure to surrender an Infinity Stone.”

“Maybe this is our punishment, and this world is our atonement for our crimes.”

Sigyn snorted. “Does anything about this world feel right to you? Truly?”

Yes, she wanted to say. Yes, this is how things should be. But she couldn’t. She missed Vision. A world without him was hollow. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Maybe that’s what kept her from saying no.

“Give me more time to think about it.”

“One more week.” 

* * *

As she had promised, Sigyn arrived at Wanda’s apartment a week after their meeting. Unlike the first time, Sigyn actually knocked on her door and waited to be invited in. Wanda offered her some tea, which Sigyn accepted. While they waited for the kettle to boil, Sigyn stood in front of the window and gazed down at the streets below. Wanda Her clothing was much more casual than it had been at their second meeting—an elegant green tunic with embroidery around the sleeves, collar and hem and simple, slim pants—but it was still unmistakably Asgardian. This was probably closer to how she looked when she was alone with Loki, closer to how she truly was. 

“Do you ever resent them?” She asked, suddenly.

“Who?”

“The others who got their loved ones back.” Sigyn was watching a couple embracing on the street below. One woman was kneeling in front of another, holding out a ring box. Ever since people came back, Wanda had seen more and more proposals. People had realized time was short and didn’t want to wait any longer to start their lives together. 

Wanda stood next to Sigyn and handed her one of the cups of tea. “No, I don’t.”

“Not even a little?”

“I miss Vision with every fiber of my soul, but I won’t begrudge them their happiness.”

She snorted and took a sip of her tea. “You’re a better woman than I am.”

“You do?”

Sigyn hesitated, and Wanda could see her mentally calculating how much she wanted to share. “I felt Loki die. Thanos he…” Sigyn’s hand came to her throat, protecting it from the ghost of an old wound. “It wasn’t just a feeling in my chest, or an overwhelming feeling of sadness. It wasn’t pretty or poetic like that. I felt the crushing of his windpipe, the snap of his vertebrae. When I came to, a part of me was gone. Seeing them is a constant reminder of that.”

“And you think creating a new reality will fix that?”

“I don’t know. But it’s worth the chance, right? Anything has to be better than this.”

And there, Wanda realized, was the core of it all. Like so many others, Sigyn was trying to fill a void left by tragedy. Her persistence in making this deal, her desperation...this was her last hope. How many other methods had she tried? Wanda imagined her hunched over some spell book in a dark cave, performing some necromancy ritual trying to will Loki back to life.

How many times had she stared at a picture of her and Vision, willing the same thing?

“I felt Vision die, too. Twice, actually. First when I destroyed the mind stone to keep it from Thanos. Then again, after Thanos rewound time and tore it from his head anyway.” 

“Made a widow twice in a matter of minutes. That is...horrible. Truly.”

After five years, the team hadn’t forgotten Vision. But they had five years to mourn those lost, and he’d just been one of them. Wanda came back from oblivion to find that the man she loved was still gone and her friends were at least trying to move on. This was the first time she had been able to properly grieve with someone who knew exactly what she was going through. Someone who had the same trouble moving forward that she did.

“Were you one of the people affected by the first snap?” It was an almost common question now. People wanted to know who had remembered the last five years. It made conversations less awkward. 

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Unfortunately?”

“My people do not trust me, not that I’ve given them much of a reason to. I did defend Loki after the attack on New York and help conceal his identity as he ruled Asgard while disguised as the All-Father. Never mind that we did keep the realm safe for those two years, or that we’d been building defenses for when Thanos would inevitably come for Asgard. Never mind that before…” she trailed off for a moment, touching her neck again. “Before, I had been placing wards on our escape ships and making sure our people were on them.”

Sigyn took another sip of her tea, and Wanda could see the cup rattle just so slightly. “But after, when I came to, few would talk to a woman who had touched death. In Norway, I was a pariah. Some called me grief mad, some called me a traitor, some called me Loki’s whore. Thor, in one of his last sober moments, threatened to exile the next person who called me that. Now...well I’m not exactly popular.”

“You still have Thor.”

“Thor is no longer on Earth,” She said with a hollow laugh. “He’s gone to space with the Guardians.”

No family, no friends, and no community. No wonder she wanted a new reality. _She really has nothing left. Do I?_

Most of her family was dead; Steve was the only exception but he was in a different time. There was Clint, but he had his family, and she feared she would overstay her welcome among them. There were no Avengers and without them, what was her purpose now? Her powers came from a desire to destroy Stark and the Avengers, then to help people as one of them. Now she was a normal woman. A normal woman with superpowers.

Could she really settle into a normal life here? Or was Sigyn’s fate destined to be her own? Would she be feared by everyone who recognized her. Would the world’s governments hunt her down again?

“After Lagos and the Sokovian accords...I wasn’t allowed to leave the Avengers compound. They locked me in a high security prison in the middle of the ocean, with a collar around my neck. The guards were afraid of me; I might as well not have been human to them. Steve broke us out, but even with new identities, I couldn’t help feeling like people were always looking at me, like mothers would pull their children away if they got too close. Only with Vision did I feel normal, like I wasn’t…”

“A monster.”

She winced, remembering when she had called Sigyn that in her anger. “I’m sorry I called you that.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been called that, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

“Maybe it could be. You wanted a new reality.”

Sigyn cast her a wary, sideways glance. “Is this you accepting my offer?”

Wanda couldn’t bring herself to say it just yet, but the answer was there in the back of her throat, waiting. “What would you want your reality to be like?”

Sigyn fell quiet, her gaze fixed on the scene on the street below. The newly engaged couple were still there, hugging and taking photos. There were no tears but her eyes looked different, like she was watching something else, some distant memory on a constant loop.

“At first, I wanted something simple. A cabin, tucked away in the woods somewhere in some distant realm away from everyone else. But that was my fear talking. Fear of being hunted, being killed. Loki is too chaotic for that life, I fear.” She paused for a moment. “And if I’m being honest, so am I.”

“Then what would you want in your new life.”

Sigyn seemed to think about it for a moment. “A life that is our own, where we can make our own destinies.” She looked at Wanda, serious. “I can’t promise that there won’t be mischief. Neither of us are cut out for that. But I can promise no world domination.”

“I’m sure that must be difficult for you,” she teased.

“What about you? What would you want in your new life?”

“I always imagined having a family of my own.”

“A family...Loki and I had tried for years but it never happened. How many kids would you want?”

“Oh just a couple. Maybe…”

“Twins,” they said in unison. There was a pause before they both burst out laughing. 

“I’m not sure if the world would be ready for Loki’s twins,” Sigyn said. “In this reality or in any other.” 

Wanda tried to imagine what her children with Vision would be like. Would they have powers like hers? Could they ever have a normal life?

But she could give them that.

“This plan of yours...is it safe?”

She shrugged. “Magic is always a wild, dangerous thing. But I planned to help you learn to control it.”

This was absolutely mad. But as Wanda looked down at the couple who were finally heading down the street, she realized that in her heart she had already agreed to this. Whether she was looking for permission or some kind of assurance or just her own courage, she already knew what she was going to do.

Wanda raised her cup in a toast. “To a new future.”

Tears shimmered in the corners of Sigyn’s eyes, and there was a brightness in her features as her shoulders relaxed. Her relief was palpable. “To getting our husbands back,” she responded as she tapped her cup against Wanda’s. They drained the last of the tea and set the cups down on the coffee table.

Sigyn turned to face her and held out her hand to her. This was her last chance; Wanda could back out now if she wanted. But when she glanced out of the window to get one last look at the city, she felt nothing tethering her to this reality. This wasn’t where she belonged. Where either of them belonged.

Wanda clasped her hand, and a surge of power jolted through her and nearly knocked the air out of her lungs. Magic swirled around their joined hands, sparkling like a firecracker.

“Now,” Sigyn said, her eyes shining like a cat’s, “Let’s tip the scales in our favor.”


End file.
